| The Society of Worshiping God was a mass religious organization formed in Guangxi province of China in the middle of the 19th century. It launched the campaign known as the Peasant Revolt of the Heavenly Kingdom of the Supreme Peace, which shocked the whole world. Hong Xiuquan, the founder of the Society of Worshiping God, led this campaign by taking advantage of the Christianity transmitted into China at the first half of the 19th century. Christianity was changed with Hong's interpretation of it in the following aspects: 1. Christianity as monotheism was shifted into a sort of polytheism and God representing the ultimate spiritual power and the moral principle turned into a Daoist deity that shared the same figure with humans and could interchange with other Daoist spirits. 2. Daoist rituals and magical arts are applied as the means for humans to associate themselves with spirits and gods or goddesses. 3. All the religious organizations of the Heavenly Kingdom of the Supreme Peace, which are military and administrative organizations, embody the ideological factors of Daoism. The belief of God of the Heavenly Kingdom of the Supreme Peace indicates the characteristics of Daoist polytheism due to the changes in the three aspects mentioned above. The dissertation discusses it in the following respects.The first chapter introduces and analyses the process of formation of the religious belief of the Heavenly Kingdom of the Supreme Peace and the social and historical as well as the cultural background concerning the formation of it. First of all the author discusses the social and historical background of it. In 1840, western big powers started the Opium War in China, which forced China tobecome a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. Owing to the military expenses and compensating payment to western nations, the Qing government exploited the common people more than ever before, which caused the peasant revolts against the taxes in various places and the rapid development of the mass organizations. The Society of Worshiping God came into being under such circumstances. Secondly, the formation of the religious belief of the Heavenly Kingdom of the Supreme Peace is based on its special cultural background. The western culture that was represented by Christianity came into China followed the economic and military invasion from the big powers of the west so that both traditional Chinese culture and western culture existed in China. As a result, Chinese culture was seriously challenged western culture, and the Chinese people must reflect about them and had to make their choice. The appearance of the Society of Worshiping God in fact is the affirmation of the foreign culture and the sublating of the traditional culture. However the religious ideas of Hong Xiuquan and the Society of Worshiping God were produced under the social circumstances of polytheism. Buddhism and Daoism, including the superstitions of the beliefs of spirits and ghosts, are not only the native religions in China but also one of the dominant ideological forms. The residents in the south of China even more worship the spirits and ghosts than the people in other places of China. Under such religious circumstances the Confucian believers who had read the Four Confucian Books and the Five Classics could not keep themselves from the superstitions. Hong Xiuquan, born in the Huaxian County of Guangdong province, was deeply affected by the customs of worshiping spirits and ghosts, which was one of foundations of his knowledge. After he accepted and believed in Christianity, his worshiping of spirits and ghosts mingled with Christianity, so much so that it seems that what he believed in was not Christianity at all.The second chapter mainly discusses polytheism and identity and interchange of the humans and spirit to demonstrate God in Christianity has become one of members in the large number of Daoist spirits and ghosts. Firstly, the religion of the Heavenly Kingdom of the Supreme Peace belongs topolytheism. There are polytheism and monotheis...
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